No sweat solutions to global warming: a series

A reintroduction

Posted by Gar Lipow (Guest Contributor) at 4:48 PM on 16 Apr 2007

I'm restarting my series on solutions to global warming, both on how to phase out fossil fuels and the best means to sequester carbon, because I consider the topic a critical one.

The carbon lobby has mostly (not entirely) given up disputing that global warming is occurring. They know that they won't be able to confuse the public on its human-caused nature much longer.

But a final stalling tactic is open to deniers -- to pretend that nothing can be done, or at least nothing that most people are willing to live with. There is an old engineering saying: "no solution, no problem."

Converging with this, there is a small but unfortunately influential primitivist movement. In their belief that technology itself is totalitarian, they also contribute to the idea that the only solution to global warming is a drastic reduction in the technical level of civilization -- perhaps down to the hunter-gatherer level. Many well-meaning, intelligent people promote a less extreme version of this trope -- the conviction that we need to impoverish working people in rich nations to solve our environmental crisis and deal justly with the poorer countries.

The primary purpose of this series is to ensure that energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies become known as inexpensive fossil fuel substitutes available today, rather than a high-priced vision of tomorrow. The U.S. needs to understand that continued use of fossil fuel is a political decision rather than a technical one.

Our only choices are not destructive, expensive continued burning of fossil fuels or dramatic cuts in standard of living.

The argument that more and more global warming deniers will rely on is that it is too expensive to phase out fossil fuel use.

There is a certain absurdity to making a long series of posts refuting the idea that saving the world is too expensive. But this absurd task is also a necessary one. If the methods offered to stop global warming are too costly or too unpleasant, many people will prefer to wait and hope that technology provides some magical painless solution.

Many series, studies, and books have been written about efficiency and renewables. What will follow differs in not assuming technical breakthroughs, or drastic price drops in prices of existing technology; while these are both likely and desirable, let's examine the cost-effective solutions available now.

Although I will deal with sources, such as wind power, the bulk of the series will deal with efficiency improvements. Please note that word is efficiency rather than conservation -- gaining the same convenience and benefits with fewer emissions, rather than living with less. For example, automatic washer/dryer combinations that reduce energy use increase efficiency; clotheslines that substitute human labor for commercial dryers conserve energy and emissions. If somebody who makes a good enough living that they can afford a washer and dryer chooses to switch to a clothesline, to trade some of their time for energy savings, that is a choice; it is not the only way to reduce emissions. Similarly, while the poorest of the poor currently need clean water, sanitation,and healthy food more than any type of luxury good, it is important to show that fighting global warming does not rule out their some day having survival necessities and the luxuries many of us take for granted that can make day-to-day living easier.

For story: No sweat solutions to global warming: a series
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Good Talkings -- But Patently Corrupt Walkings

Many of the politicians who greedly froth with green saliva from their vote chasing mouths are the same ones who are crushing Yankee ingenuity by destroying (Deforming) the American patent system.

The myth is that only the Goliaths of Corpocratic America are capable of inventing our way out of the carbon combusting mess they got us into in the first place.

The truth is that most of the truly innovative inventions come from individuals and small start ups. The Goliaths are running scared and are seeking to crush the upstarts. One way to do that is to kill the golden goose that begat American technological supremacy, the traditional American patent system. They are at it even as we speak, breaking the system apart piece by piece..

The Goliaths shroud themselves under spin names like "Coalition" for Patent "Fairness". Their intent is to be anything but "fair". As the witches of Macbeth warned us: Fair is foul and Balanced is a spin meister's inversion of the truth. Beware the Ides of April Deform. Write to your Congressperson to protect the individual innovators of America. Don't look away as they get crushed by the K Street Goliaths.

Who do you trust to come up with the innovations that will reverse our Corpocratic Way of Warming the Globe, David or Goliath? Solar energy or E85 Cornahol?

by step back at 2:20 AM on 17 Apr 2007

You wouldn't want to name names, would you?

Gar;

WRT

Many well-meaning, intelligent people promote a less extreme version of this trope -- the conviction that we need to impoverish working people in rich nations to solve our environmental crisis and deal justly with the poorer countries.

You wouldn't want to name names, would you?

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

by Tom Athanasiou at 4:40 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Hydropower: CO2 and Methane emissions

I am vice pres. of a Labrador, Canada group called Grand Riverkeeper Labrador. In a couple of your comments I noted you believe that most mega dams are already built. Unfortunately that is not entirely true. Our river (seen on maps as the Churchill River) we take back the name Grand River/Mista Shipu given to it by the Innu and Metis people- Anyway, our government and Newfoundland Hydro currently have us in an Environmental Process on this huge mega project slated to build two dams and make reservoirs out of our 500km long river, effectively changing a 57,000. sq km watershed from river to reservoirs. We are very concerned about emissions issues and the proponent tells us they have checked CO2 emissions on the reservoir that was created in the 1970's on the height of land which diverted several lakes and rivers to create the first project and compared it with the lower river and they remain the same. We think if they checked methane emissions as it drops through the turbines and enters the tail race that they would find huge methane emissions. We are trying to use this issue plus all the others that apply to a project this size to stop them from destroying the entire of central Labrador, but we have no voting power. We are 27,000 people in an area the size of Texas and we are spread out geographically as well as having 3 different aboriginal groups which government is pitting against each other using money and land claims. Please inform as many people as you can of the plans to build two more dams on this river and all to export energy to the US. We do not need more energy here, we have over 350MW excess from the first project if government ever decides to allow us to use it.

If any of you have any other info on methane, or anything that might help us through the environmental process, please post it here. Please go to our web site (recently set up and not yet complete) to hear about our river and it's threats. www.grandriverkeeperlabrador.org

by robertaFB at 6:53 AM on 17 Apr 2007

No such thing as "no sweat"

If I understand your post correctly, you imply that it is easy to change the way humans use and create energy. If it was easy, then it would be cheap. If it was cheap, we would already be doing it. There is no easy or cheap solution.

I agree that we need to use alternative forms of energy and I say this on my blog http://www.globalwarming-factorfiction.com all of the time. However, a more urgent need to do this is geopolitical reasons but oil is so cheap that we can't even do that for the safety of our country.

The issues are extremely expensive and very difficult. That doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. It means that we better make sure we are correct because the cost could bankrupt the nation.

by seanos at 7:03 AM on 17 Apr 2007

The Price of "Sweat"

Once we start framing our discussions into ones that look at what forms of exploitable energy are "cheap" and which are more "costly", we thrust ourselves through the Alice-in-Wonderland Mirror and fool ourselves into believing that the noises we alone make are actually true. Exactly how "cheap" is it to pursue an energy policy that dooms this planet to an early demise?

Mother Nature does not perform her accounting according to the say so of a bunch of freakly mutated apes; the kind we call "accountants". She does not stop adding to the count of in-atmosphere GHG's just because our human accountants declare those to be "externalities". She does not stop requiring that the laws of energy conservation and entropy be obeyed.

We humans have a serious mental disease. It's called believing our own bull shit.

Any energy exploitation policy that continues to pump noxious and planet killing gases into the atmosphere is a very "costly" one. We are just too dumb to see how costly.

by step back at 8:01 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Tales from The Crypto-Malthusians

Wow, you guys just don't give up do you? No matter how many times it's been shown that global warming (anthropogenic-style) is not valid, you keep reiterating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto-malthusian

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 8:37 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Shown & Blown (Like Hot Air)

It's also been "shown" that evolution ain't real and that the Lord Almighty created the Universe in 6 days, whereafter He Who Hath Infinite power got "tired" and had to "rest".

The trouble with people like you is that you don't understand Malthus was right, just the timing was a bit off.

by step back at 8:50 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Seanos - Cost

We (as Americans) have dumped nearly half a trillion dollars into the sands of Iraq. Exactly how much would that have bought us in terms of energy security and sustainability? When we want something badly enough we find ways to pay for it. Whining about how expensive and hard it is to take care of a pressing issue seems to come up only when we're not truly committed to taking care of the problem.

As for what Gar is saying, we're not dealing with a blank slate here. We have hundreds billions of dollars flowing through our economy that could be moved from destructive practices to sustainable ones. Reducing waste and inefficiencies, rerouting massive subsidies into research and development, doing a little work for ourselves... these are all 'free' solutions that will take us a long way towards our goal. It's not about injecting liquified CO2 or putting mylar reflectors into space, it's about acting like what we do has consequences.

Guess I'm saying, life is hard. Climate change won't go away on its own, and you gasp might have to do something about it yourself. No one's going to go bankrupt because they're hanging clothes out to dry or riding a bike to work. Get used to it; suck it up and take your medicine.

by PBrazelton at 9:08 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Waste

I have found that the most effective way to start this sort of conversation is to point out just how wasteful current practice is. That waste represents a huge economic and environmental opportunity.

Lawrence Berkeley Lab used to have a couple of really compelling energy flow charts, showing energy sources and sinks in a variety of different sectors. It shows that 2/3 of electrical generation energy, and 4/5 of transportation energy, is wasted.

Personally, I believe the real waste fractions are much higher, when you consider what we could be doing with passive solar design, electrified light rail, and cogeneration. But the point is, LBNL is a conservative and reputable organization, and even they see enormous waste in the system.

Unfortunately, these charts went offline recently, and I haven't found them again. I have local copies, which I will post if I can dig them up. But if anyone else knows what I'm talking about, and where to find it now, that would be really helpful.

by GreenEngineer at 9:25 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Exactly

Our only choices are not just

Destructive, expensive continued burning of fossil fuels

Dramatic cuts in standard of living.

Standard Granola Environmentalist:
Do Less, With Less Resources

Standard Money is Everything Capitalist:
Do More, with More Resources

The Way to Get Them to Agree:
Do More, with Less Resources

by GreyFlcn at 9:47 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Replies

Ok - Some of the replies will be in my next post before I get to the technical parts

Tom,I won't list every austeritist. The extreme end of that is the appalling Derrick Jensen in his horrifying two book series EndGame calling for the destruction of technical civilization. At the less extreme end, Heinberg and a lot of the peak oil movement. (Note that I speak here for people for whom peak oil is an ideology rather than a prediction about timing. ) As to ways it spreads. It has even infected Monbiot, someone I greatly respect. From tne end of his book Heat:

For the campaign against climate change is an odd one. Unlike almost all the protests which have preceded it is a campaign not for abundance but for austerity. It is a campaign not for more freedom but for less. Strangest of all, is not just against other people but also against ourselves.

there are two things wrong with this. One is it is not true. It is not true even if the assumptions of the Stern report about how costly it will be the fight global warming are, because leaving climate chaos unmitigaged will cost us a great deal more (which of course is Stern's point). And I agree with "The value of an Iceberg" that his cost/benefit analysis takes a fundamentally wrong way of trying to price catastrophe. But I think it is important the premise is wrong too.

The one thing I'm not sure is term "No Sweat". My original title was "No Hair Shirts" which I think was more precise, because hair shirts were an ancient from of self-punishiment, self-mortification. "No Sweat", though intended to convey the same idea unfortunately also sounds like it won't take hard work. And of course fighting climate chaos will take lots of hard work. But the hard work will be political. We have the technical solutions: and they are less expensive than a lot of people think. Partially I think the potential for efficiency is heavily underestimated. Most people think we can double the GDP we produce from each unit of energy. I think the right figure is more like quadruple of quintuple.

I will add that this series will pretty much focus on technical issues. I will make posts on political economy ocassionally, but they will not have the "No Sweat" label, because I think the politics of fighting global warming are not "No Sweat", though they are definitely "No Hair Shirt". I will never advocate self-punishment, self-mortification, and remain an opponent of the gloating puritanism I do see as part of a lot of environmental discourse.

I will add that when it comes to Monbiot, most of what he advocates does not actually involve austerity or lack of freedom. I don't know why he insists on buying the rhetoric.

by Gar Lipow at 10:11 AM on 17 Apr 2007

Doing more, with less resources

GreyFlcn's hit it on the head. It can be a tough thing to convince people that it's even possible, because there's not alot of room to go in that direction within the predominant view of industrial development and "progress".

Bill McDonough makes a fantastic presentation on how this is both necessary and possible. It's really his most unique contribution, to demonstrate that a hopeful future is possible, if we are willing to reframe the problems we are trying to solve. He has a couple of DVD presentations on the topic, but I think his best one was the speech he gave at Bioneers in 2000.

I have that presentation available online, in small (80MB) and big (600 MB) versions. Enjoy!

by GreenEngineer at 10:15 AM on 17 Apr 2007

You Can't

"You can't be too poor or too thin."

--John Bailo

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 11:34 AM on 17 Apr 2007
[ Parent ]

funny

I searched on John A Bailo and followed the second hit.

LOL!

It looks like some online communities are less tolerant than Grist of jabailo's time wasting and trollishness.

by GreenEngineer at 1:18 PM on 17 Apr 2007

Energy Flow charts for the Green Engineer

Here is one:
http://www.swans.com/library/dossiers/pics/enflow00.jpg

Generally this google search works

by step back at 1:20 PM on 17 Apr 2007

That's it

Thanks, step back. I actually also found the original source, which is now an https link for some reason.

by GreenEngineer at 1:40 PM on 17 Apr 2007

Maybe to rephrase by own analogy

Well since resource use is ambigous,
Maybe the better way to say it.

A) Do Less, with Less GHG Emissions
B) Do More, with More GHG Emissions
C) Do More, with Less GHG Emissions

by GreyFlcn at 2:13 PM on 17 Apr 2007

Don't drop conservation

I'm looking forward to more in your series, Gar.

I agree with 95% of what you say, but I don't think it's a good idea to drop conservation. Technically, conservation has some critical advantages over efficiency.

Efficiency takes huge amounts of capital, infrastructure change and time to implement. Conservation can take place instantaneously at very little cost. For example, speed limits can be reduced to 55 mph practically overnight as they were during the 70s. Efficiency improvements to get a comparable energy savings will be a long time coming.
With efficiency, the only way most individuals can participate is to buy more efficient products. Conservation strategies are open to anybody with eyes and a mind.
Previous cultures are rich with ideas for conservation - our ancestors had satisfying, often happier lives than we on a fraction of the resources.

The example you give of a clothesdrier vs a clothesline is actually a strong argument in favor of the conservation strategy. Look at the materials and infrastructure required to support electric driers! The waste of energy is stupendous, and the convenience is minimal. As an energy person, you know what a dumb idea it is to use electricity (high quality energy) to make heat (low quality energy).

Since our drier broke several months ago, we've been air drying our clothes. It's not that big a deal, and the clothes smell fresher and feel better. (On the other hand, the washing machine is a gift from God -- that's worth saving.)

I suspect that it's not the technical strategy of conservation that irks you as much as the moralizing, hair-shirt aspect.

There's some truth to that, but I have to say that I don't think some self-discipline and prudence would hurt us at all. I think the hedonism and materialism of the past few decades will give way to values that have been traditional for centuries. "Waste not, want not."

A satisfying life is still possible, but it won't be one with the possessions and whims that we in the West enjoy at present.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

by Bart Anderson at 4:19 PM on 17 Apr 2007

Well it's not even

Well it's not even a matter of giving up your dryer.

Northern California's utility, PG&E, is a perfect example of how to do effeciency right.

In short, if it's cheaper to do effeciency than to build new power plants.

By law, they have to do the effeciency.

And for large effeciency products. PG&E will often pay 2/3rds the Capital costs.

The other advantage with PG&E is that they are a government regulated monopoly, which is given a healthy return on investment for their shareholders.

From this PG&E more money, not based on how much electricity they sell, but on how much effeceincy they sell.

The advantage, California now has half the per-capita energy use as the rest of the United States.

Still (very) hedonistic. But in general, we don't have to think about it much. Since we're getting exactly the same services, but for dramatically lower cost and energy use.

The way I see it, the less the public has to think about anything, the better.

Since while you can get the public's support.
Educating the public is just stupidly hard.

So in general, I don't expect People to change.
I expect Things to change.

by GreyFlcn at 4:44 PM on 17 Apr 2007

Monbiot

I haven't read HEAT yet, though I do have it in my stack. But I've been reading Monbiot for a while now, and I think the problem might be that he secretly, in his heart of hearts, thinks that we are doomed.

If I was a catholic, I might say that this was a sin.

I tend to agree with you, but I'm hoping you don't overstate you case. This is not going to be easy.

-- toma

Tom Athanasiou toma@ecoequity.org

by Tom Athanasiou at 5:38 PM on 17 Apr 2007

misc replies

>I agree with 95% of what you say, but I don't think it's a good idea to drop conservation. Technically, conservation has some critical advantages over efficiency.

But I'm not dropping conservation in the sense of opposing it. I just choose not to concentrate on it.

>I tend to agree with you, but I'm hoping you don't overstate you case. This is not going to be easy.

I hope I don't either. I've certainly put a lot of effort into getting my facts and numbers right. And I don't think it will be easy: I think it won't involve a drop in GDP, and that the right politics for it don't involve sacrificing the interests of the poor and working people.

I'm beginning to wonder if I should stuck to the original "no hair shirts" title. Because, maybe not everybody knows what a hair shirt is or why we would not want to wear one. But "No Sweat" may end up being really misleading, where "No Hair Shirts" means exactly what I intended to say.

by Gar Lipow at 10:14 PM on 17 Apr 2007

Conscience of a conserve-ative

Gar: I'm not dropping conservation in the sense of opposing it. I just choose not to concentrate on it.

Makes sense. Efficiency is easier for most Americans to accept right now. It fits in better with the predominant worldview.

Amory Lovins and Thomas Friedman are an easier sell than James Howard Kunstler.

Also efficiency is a natural for engineers and technically minded people.

I'm more interested in conservation and cultural change, since my background is in the humanities. Also, I think we will undergo massive culture change no matter what ... and it would be good to get a head start.

Bart
Energy Bulletin

by Bart Anderson at 12:44 PM on 18 Apr 2007

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